This Year We Celebrate The 125-Year Anniversary of “the Show,” which is Black College Football

By ADD SEYMOUR JR.

“Big John” Merritt used to call it “the Show.”

Earnest Wilson just called it “Show Time.”

The irony is that these two coaches at historically black colleges and universities from two different eras – Merritt at Jackson State and Tennessee State from the 60s through the 80s, and Wilson who now coaches at Elizabeth City State – describe the 125-year tradition of HBCU football in virtually the same terms.

But that’s what it is.

It would be short-changing and selfish to believe that college football at other places lacks a deep sense of tradition and pageantry that turns a game on grass for three hours into a huge colorful spectacle.

But at HBCUs, that spectacle takes on a completely different hue.  HBCU football is part of black life. It is a show.

I grew up in Nashville, Tenn., during the era that Big John Merritt was coach of dominant Tennessee State football teams, and pretty much could have been mayor of Nashville.  TSU anchored Jefferson Street (the part near campus is now named “John Merritt Boulevard”) in north Nashville where much of black Nashville was centered.  So it made perfect sense that a Tennessee State football game in Nashville – a city that didn’t have professional sports and sports at Vanderbilt and Tennessee were the domain of white folks – TSU athletics was THE thing that connected all black folks in Nashville, whether they attended TSU or not.

Even now, the question every black person in or from Nashville asks other black people in or from Nashville annually – no matter what part of the country they live in – is “when is TSU’s homecoming?”

It’s just part of being a black Nashvillian.  But folks in Grambling, La., Durham, N.C., Jackson, Miss., Tallahassee, Fla., Tuskegee, Ala., and many other places can say the exact same thing. 

Now in this world of the Internet, social media and what had been a millennial life that was less influenced by race than it was for my generation and those before mine, more inclusion has chipped away at the influence of “the Show” on black folks and black communities.

But believe me, it’s still important.

Where at some schools where halftime meant a food or bathroom run, at HBCU football games, halftime still means the Ocean of Soul, the House of Funk, the Human Jukebox, the Sonic Boom, the Sounds of Dynamite, the Aristocrat of Bands and many other marching musicals that are about precision, music and bragging rights.

Greek members will step and sport their letters, alums will hug and greet long lost friends, old school fans will grill out, play “Flashlight,” and argue about who’s band is best.  Students will have more reason to party and football players will know it’s about pride.

So, this year, the nation should gloriously celebrate what is the 125^th anniversary of black college football.  From that Dec. 27, 1892 game between Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University) and Livingstone College in which Biddle held on for a 4-0 win, to today when Texas Southern visits Florida A&M in the inaugural Jake Gaither Football Classic, and every game in between, the gridiron continues to be the grand uniter of black communities everywhere. 

It’s time for “the Show” to begin.